This Week in Dark Money: July 13, 2012

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“We openly acknowledge the irony of being a super PAC trying to address money in politics.” —Jonathan Soros, son of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, explaining his new anti-super PAC super PAC, Friends of Democracy. His super PAC joins several others formed to protest the amount of money in American politics. (The Open Society Foundations, chaired by George Soros, have supported Mother Jones’ campaign-finance reporting.)

$200,000: The amount that LPAC, a new, first-of-its-kind lesbian and women’s-rights super PAC, reports that it raised on its first day. The group hopes to raise a modest $1 million. It’s headed by Chicago Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts, a major bundler for President Obama. Her dad, Joe Ricketts, is also a Cubs co-owner and has his own super PAC, the anti-Obama Ending Spending Fund.

ATTACK AD OF THE WEEK

A conservative dark-money group called American Commitment is using some of the $7 million it’s raised to attack Democrats in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, North Dakota, New Mexico, and Nevada. (Last month, the group spent $1 million on ads opposing EPA regulations.) American Commitment was started by Phil Kerpen, who has also worked for the Koch brothers-connected Americans for Prosperity and Club for Growth. In Ohio, the group has spent $1.2 million on ads attacking Sen. Sherrod Brown. This one accuses Brown of being “the deciding vote” in favor of Obamacare:

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